General Electric Co Company Update on June 26, 2018 / 12:30PM
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Client Id: 77 THOMSON REUTERS STREETEVENTS EDITED TRANSCRIPT GE - General Electric Co Company Update EVENT DATE/TIME: JUNE 26, 2018 / 12:30PM GMT OVERVIEW: Co. provided an update on its fundamental changes. THOMSON REUTERS STREETEVENTS | www.streetevents.com | Contact Us ©2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. 'Thomson Reuters' and the Thomson Reuters logo are registered trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies. Client Id: 77 JUNE 26, 2018 / 12:30PM, GE - General Electric Co Company Update CORPORATE PARTICIPANTS Jamie S. Miller General Electric Company - Senior VP & CFO John L. Flannery General Electric Company - Chairman & CEO Kieran P. Murphy GE Healthcare Limited - Former President & CEO of Life Sciences Matthew G. Cribbins General Electric Company - VP of Investor Communications CONFERENCE CALL PARTICIPANTS Andrew Alec Kaplowitz Citigroup Inc, Research Division - MD and U.S. Industrial Sector Head Andrew Burris Obin BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division - MD Charles Stephen Tusa JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division - MD Christopher D. Glynn Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division - MD and Senior Analyst Jeffrey Todd Sprague Vertical Research Partners, LLC - Founder and Managing Partner Julian C.H. Mitchell Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division - Research Analyst Nigel Edward Coe Wolfe Research, LLC - MD & Senior Research Analyst Scott Reed Davis Melius Research LLC - Founding Partner, Chairman, CEO & Research Analyst of Multi-Industry Research Steven Eric Winoker UBS Investment Bank, Research Division - MD & Industrials Analyst PRESENTATION Operator Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the General Electric Company Update. (Operator Instructions) My name is Ellen, and I will be your conference coordinator today. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the program over to your host for today's conference, Matt Cribbins, Vice President of Investor Communications. Please proceed. Matthew G. Cribbins - General Electric Company - VP of Investor Communications Good morning, and welcome to today's webcast. I'm joined by our Chairman and CEO, John Flannery; our CFO, Jamie Miller and GE Healthcare CEO, Kieran Murphy. Before we start, I would like to remind you that the press release and presentation have been available since earlier today on our investor website at www.ge.com/investor. Please note that some of the statements we are making today are forward-looking and are based on our best view of the world and our businesses as we see them today. As described in our SEC filings and on our website, those elements can change as the world changes. And now I'll turn the call over to John Flannery. John L. Flannery - General Electric Company - Chairman & CEO Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today and discuss some important developments that we announced this morning. We are making fundamental changes to position our businesses for the future and redefine GE for another century of success. As you know, we have been working to determine the appropriate longer-term strategic focus for GE. There are 3 essential elements of this strategy: one is focusing our portfolio for growth and shareholder value creation; the second is strengthening our balance sheet; and the third is a market shift in how we 2 THOMSON REUTERS STREETEVENTS | www.streetevents.com | Contact Us ©2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. 'Thomson Reuters' and the Thomson Reuters logo are registered trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies. Client Id: 77 JUNE 26, 2018 / 12:30PM, GE - General Electric Co Company Update run the company. With respect to our portfolio, our Aviation, Power and Renewables businesses will be the core of GE going forward. These are 3 formidable franchises where we've built leadership positions over many decades. These businesses also have significant strategic linkages. They share technologies, digital and additive strategies and business models. While our core Aviation, Power and Renewable businesses can thrive inside of the current GE framework, we think substantial value can be created by moving other businesses outside of GE. To implement that strategy, we are creating a separate stand-alone Healthcare company and we also intend to fully separate BHGE. These are 2 strong and competitive businesses with leading positions and strong growth prospects but they both have various constraints operating inside the current GE construct. We believe these businesses can achieve greater results for employees, customers and our owners as stand-alone companies. The pending merger of our Transportation business with Wabtec was driven by the same strategic approach. We will begin the process of separating our Healthcare business immediately. We will monetize approximately 20% and approximately 80% of Healthcare will be distributed tax free to our shareholders through a spin or split. Kieran will share more with you on Healthcare later in today's presentation. Oil & Gas was separated from GE in July of 2017 when we made the strategic decision to combine it with Baker Hughes. There's strong industrial logic for the transaction, the companies are much stronger together and shareholders are getting the benefit of significant synergies both on the revenue and cost side as well as benefiting from substantial combined technology. We expect to pursue an orderly separation of the company within 2 to 3 years with a focus on maximizing value for BHGE and GE. Strengthening the balance sheet of the company is a top priority for us. This will allow us the flexibility and capacity to invest in growing our core businesses going forward. We will reduce our net debt by about $25 billion and this will bring our net debt-to-EBITDA below 2.5x by 2020. We will run the company with a substantially higher cash balance and reduce our use of commercial paper. Our strategy with regard to GE Capital is clear, we're making it smaller and more focused. We are reducing assets by $25 billion and we'll bring our debt to equity to less than 4x by 2020. We are aggressively working on actions and alternatives to mitigate, reduce or eliminate our exposure to long-term care insurance. As I outlined at EPG, we will run GE Company in a fundamentally different way going forward. Our businesses will be the center of gravity and will run on a new operating system that we believe will improve our operations and cash performance. These changes will reduce corporate costs by at least $500 million by 2020. We expect this number to grow over time as this velocity is applied across all levels of the company. This is in addition to cost actions already announced in 2017 and 2018. Lastly, we also announced this morning that Larry Culp will succeed Jack Brennan as lead Director effective today. Jack has led us through significant change in the company, including a leadership transition and I want to thank him deeply and personally for his service. I'm excited to work with Larry; and his experience fits extremely well with the changes we're making at the company. In conjunction with previous actions, today's announcement marks the emergence of a new GE, a high-tech industrial GE. A simpler, stronger and more focused company at the core, a strengthened balance sheet, a new operating system and a bright future for our Healthcare and BHGE businesses. This is a GE that is equipped to fight for the future. Now I'd like to cover in more detail our changes to the portfolio, including the core GE going forward, and our plans for Healthcare and BHGE. I want to talk about the philosophy and strategic intent behind these decisions. As I've said previously, the steps we're taking are really a means to an end, the end being a simpler, stronger and more focused company where our quality assets can reach their true potential and flourish in the decades ahead. We sought to position the businesses in an environment guided by 4 basic principles: the maximum ability to pursue their organic and inorganic investment strategies; strong alignment for management incentives linking performance and reward; reducing complexity and cost, while improving decision-making speed; and making sure any central essential services are subject to a market test by the business units. We are fundamentally inverting the company to make the business units the center of gravity. I want to focus the businesses externally into the market. We'll have a much smaller corporate focused on strategy and execution, capital allocation, talent development and governance. The entire fabric of the company will be one of continuous improvement driven by operating leaders using well-proven tools, like Lean and Six Sigma. Digital and Additive strategies will continue to drive customer value and performance. We believe that these changes will yield substantial improvements in performance over time. There will be improved focus, better accountability, clear capital allocation decisions, more strategic optionality and better 3 THOMSON REUTERS STREETEVENTS | www.streetevents.com | Contact Us ©2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. 'Thomson Reuters' and the Thomson Reuters logo are registered trademarks of Thomson Reuters and its affiliated companies. Client Id: 77 JUNE 26, 2018 / 12:30PM, GE - General Electric Co Company Update alignment of compensation. Our plan will create a strong, exciting and growing GE built on operational execution and robust industrial logic. Going forward, GE will be comprised of Aviation, Power and Renewables, supported by Digital, Additive and the financing expertise of GE Capital.